NVDAILY.COM | Opinion
1 Comment Fort Hood charges
|
|
Thirteen charges of premeditated murder were lodged Thursday against Maj. Nadil Malik Hasan, the alleged perpetrator of the shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas.
That the charges were brought by military prosecutors indicates that authorities believe the rampage, which also injured nearly 30 others, is a case of military-on-military crime, unrelated to terrorism.
The latter possibility had arisen because Hasan had exchanged e-mails with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Islamic cleric in Yemen. Those communications were captured by U.S. intelligence, which passed them along to the Joint Terrorism Task Force. A Defense Department investigator pulled Hasan's personnel files but concluded that the messages, which were rather innocuous, raised no red flags.
But the report was not shared with the Pentagon or with anyone outside the terror task force. Had the investigator contacted Hasan's psychiatric colleagues at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, he would have learned of concerns about his troubling conduct and middling work record. Some of his cohorts and superiors questioned his fitness to be a military psychiatrist, but work rules restricted disciplinary options and in the end he was dispatched to Fort Hood.
The military's filing of charges must not foreclose a comprehensive investigation into Hasan's past and possible terrorist links, a task some congressmen have pledged to undertake. President Obama has also ordered a review of the government's handling of the case.
Whether a more thorough probe would have prevented the massacre at Fort Hood is the great unknowable, but, in retrospect, further scrutiny would have been useful.
Looking at the Hasan matter, a couple of questions occure.
As an Army Major, he was pulling down about $90,000 per year. Yet he was living like a private in a cheap dump with a rent of $350 per month. Unless the furniture had been removed before the press cameras were allowed in, he was living with a folding table and chairs. There seemed to be no love interest in his life. Where was his money going?
Security cleared his contact with the Yemeni as merely questions of religious interest. One wonders how good the translations they looked at were. If you are not a native speaker sharing the background of the people you are translating, a lot can slip by. Selection of a variant of one word can change the whole meaning of the passage. Religion is the lifeblood of the Islamic militant terrorist movement.
There were reports that Hasan was supposedly studying the Islamic militant movement as part of his duties. If these are true, it's possible he got too close to the edge and fell in.
Finally (for the moment), there was mention that some of the troops targeted were psychiatic personnel headed to Afghanistan. Where they fellow members of his section? If so, then it also becomes personal.
Earlier in response to a previous column, I postulated than Hasan might be a classic "lone gunman" type spree killer. With the bits and pieces continuing to come to the surface, perhaps he is more. Or, he may be both. One wonders if such a personality isn't drawn to terrorism.
Copyright © The Northern Virginia Daily | nvdaily.com | 152 N. Holliday St., Strasburg, Va. 22657 | (800) 296-5137